NVIDIA might be the great upsetter in MID devices [videos]

The mobile wars have started and June is going to be a hot month with the MSI Wind that will take on the Asus EeePC -the model that has open the doors to cheap very light netbooks. The UMPC and MID segments still look blurry, there is no clear division line for their screen size, capabilities, processing class and power. (continued)

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6 reasons laptop manufacturers love SSDs

I recently wrote a post about how SSDs are expected to become ubiquitous and cost competitive by 2011. At the end of the post, I mentioned that it is not just a matter of technological development pushing things forward, and that it is also in the interest of laptop manufacturers to sell SSD equipped models as soon as they can. And here is why:

1. Fast read/write speeds: SSDs have started with competitive data rates and as more manufacturers put resources behind them within 2008 we will see them outpacing traditional drives. It is estimated that Intel will offer 200MB/100MB read/write speeds. Numbers will improve with time and competition.
2. Rapidly improving capacities: If you have followed what has happened with camera flash memory, you already know that the price that gets you a certain capacity now, will most likely buy you a lot more -in some cases double the initial capacity- after a few months to a year. With Toshiba to offer 512MB SSDs in 2009, be sure that hard disc capacities will be soon matched, and when the economics allow, exceeded. (continued)

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SSDs (Solid State Drives) to become cost effective by 2011

Happy with your super spacious 320GB hard disc? Wait till SSDs really start to come. At the moment they have fast read/write speeds, but that’s about it. You have to wrestle with limited capacities and prices that can instead get you some really nice tech goodies.

For laptop companies, SSDs are something like a godsend as they prolong battery life and take crash prone hard discs out of the reliability equation. According to Crave, while Toshiba currently offers capacities up to 128GB, it plans 512GB SSDs as soon as 2009. Overall, SSDs are expected to become cost effective by 2011. There is two driving forces behind SSD technology:

Falling costs: If cost falls by 50% annually, SSDs will stop being an ultra-expensive option (that can on its own buy a new laptop) and by 2011 it is expected that their price performance ratio will make them competitive to conventional hard discs.

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Favourite tech picture of the day – 9th of April 2008

That’s really cute, why has nobody thought of it before? (Source: Flickr via Gizmodo)

Intel pushes with Atom and MID for “Internet in your pocket”

Intel MID devices in CES 2008 were only mockups to give us an idea of size. In three months, Intel has progressed dramatically. The device segment between mobile phones/smartphones and laptops is the next cash heaven for device and chip manufacturers and Intel wants to be strong in this market as soon as possible. Atom processors and the MID concept are the names around which Intel wants to build a strong presence.

Today Intel announced some Atom spec for the first time. It is the smallest CPU in the company’s history with a power consumption a scale of magnitude lower than the 35W typical of today’s best laptop processors. Of course that fact does not guarantee anything, as for the time being Atom handles data but no voice. And since consumers want voice and data in one small mobile package, it is probably a matter of time before this is offered as well. For this reason, analysts estimate that Atom chips will be in a truly competitive position by 2009 or 2010.